Martha Peake

by Patrick Mcgrath

  No, she held his gaze—gaze, I call it, when what she saw, I imagine, what she locked eyes with, was, rather, a pair of slits which even in the gloom, even at that distance, were tiny glittering pinpricks of malevolence and lust—but after a second she did pull back, a fierce prickle of dread and alarm coursing the length of her spine, and a strong flush rising as the blood came up in her cheeks. She sat panting in the window alcove while these extraordinary physical reactions to the man subsided; and then, climbing down, she sat close to the fire. Clyte knew why she had fled her father, and that her father was ignorant of her whereabouts; and I strongly suspect that every instinct in Martha told her that this dark little creature meant her no good.

  She did not sleep. Later that night, her imagination still excited by the appearance of Clyte, she tried to tell herself that she must put her trust in my uncle William, who would not allow her to be harmed by anybody, as she thought—not Clyte, not Drogo, not her father. This helped her. She had no great confidence that putting her trust in God would avail her much—if God was looking out for her, then why was she in this predicament at all?—but William Tree, he was another matter. William did not move in mysterious ways. William had offered her his protection. He had taken her under his wing. She had nothing to fear with William on her side.

  Not so. Even my uncle admitted as much. He was a busy man, he said, and his duties in Lord Drogo’s dissecting rooms were many and varied, with the result that, after settling Martha in the west wing, and issuing stern warnings, he vanished into the bowels of the house, by which I mean the cellars, sculleries, and outhouses set aside for his lordship’s anatomical work, and Martha lost sight of him. Knowing only when she was allowed to appear in the kitchen, and when she could put out her night-soil, and collect her water and firewood—and instructed never to show herself out-of-doors during daylight hours, nor in any other part of the house than those passages and staircases connecting the tower to the kitchen, and under no circumstances to attempt to make contact with Lord Drogo—who had not yet been apprised, William told her, of her presence under his roof, as William was waiting, so he said, for a “felicitous opportunity”—she was left to herself.

  Meanwhile Harry was scouring London for her. Her flight had convinced him beyond all reason of the truth of his suspicions, that is, that his daughter, with the help of Fred Lour, who had also disappeared, had robbed and deceived him. Other things, wild things, he also believed. He believed there must be still other men involved. Harry’s picture of the world and how it worked was by this time as bent out of alignment as his spine. Since Martha had fled him there was no one to buttress him against the self-loathing and despair that now preyed upon him without cease. For as my uncle correctly said, if the world calls a man a monster, and there is nobody to contradict it, then that man, in his own eyes, becomes a monster; and who could love a monster? Surely any man, any normal man, of normal scale, and structure, and symmetry and proportion is preferable to a monster—hence Harry’s conviction that Martha had fled with the help of other men; and hence, to compound the madness, jealousy of the most destructive kind, mindless and primitive, was now aroused in his tortured heart. Salt in the wound, worse than salt, a fresh wound, rather, a hundred times more excruciating than mere abandonment. Oh, Harry Peake’s hell had yet to display the full measure of its torments.

  But as he floundered in his sea of gin, as he clung like a castaway to this single splintered plank of an idea, someone came to him and hinted to him of Martha’s whereabouts. Who could have done that? Only Clyte.

  He crossed the marsh on foot. Martha was the first to see him, as he came forward alone against that flat, featureless waste. She was in her window, with a book, when she happened to glance up, and there he was, a mile away, just beginning to come up over the rise; and as soon as she saw those shoulders she knew it was he. Only her father had shoulders thrown so emphatically athwart as those were; only her father—and now the figure was over the rise and visible in all its lurching glory—had a spine which flared like a hood and wrenched those shoulders apart! He moved her to tears, that shuffling fellow out there on the marsh, that dear benighted man; and she was close to surrendering all caution, she wanted to run down the road and feel him sweep her up in his arms—but she pushed down the impulse, she pushed it down, though it cost her all she had, and with her face pressed to the window she silently wept, because she could see him coming and was unable to go to him lest he harm her.

  But what was he doing now? He had reached a solitary stand of elms on the bank of a narrow ditch and settled himself at the foot of a tree. And what was he doing now? He was having a drink. He had taken from his pocket a bottle and he was having a drink. Then he put the bottle away, but he did not move. He was watching the house. He was sitting under a tree and staring at Drogo Hall, waiting for—what? For Martha to appear, so that he could rush down on her and tear her to pieces? Oh no. Not that.

  Still the tears streamed down Martha’s face. After a while she saw him get to his feet and resume his erratic progress. Was she the only one to see him? How could a big humped figure like that go unnoticed in a landscape devoid of any feature but a few trees? Surely the whole house must know he was coming?

  “Oh God,” she whispered, “what am I to do?”

  But a moment later my uncle entered the room; and seeing Martha at the window, turning, now, startled, toward him, he said: “So you know.”

  “What am I to do, William?” she cried.

  “Nothing, my dear, nothing at all. I came to tell you that. Do nothing. Lord Drogo will receive him. Your presence will not be revealed.”

  “Is this sure, William?”

  “On my honour.”

  “Thank you, William. Thank you, thank you!”

  He bowed, and left her.

  What Martha should of course have remembered, but did not, were her own sentiments when, like her father, she had come on foot across the marsh, drawing ever closer to Drogo Hall, and quite uncertain as to the reception she could expect. To come as a petitioner to a great house is not for the faint of heart. The nearer the visitor approaches, the more imposing the building appears; the more imposing the building, the more intimidating the prospect; so that by the time she actually reaches the house, her feelings of doubt and trepidation have become magnified, and whatever courage and purpose she may have started out with, by then it has long since dissipated. This is why lords and kings build great houses, so as to terrify their visitors.

  And so it was for Harry Peake. Martha watched him from the window, careful that she herself could not be seen; and the closer he got, the slower and more haltingly uncertain his step, such that she was convinced he would at any moment turn back.

  But then Lord Drogo came out to meet him.

  Hearing this, I began to pay close attention not only to my uncle’s words, but to the tone in which they were spoken. I suspected strongly that hidden meanings were secreted in this history of his, relative to Lord Drogo’s ambitions; I listened to hear them betrayed. Drogo, he said in his urgent fluting whisper, emerged from the front door and came briskly down the steps in shirtsleeves and britches and advanced with a hand outstretched to where Martha’s poor bewildered father stood waiting, somewhat unsteady, deeply uncertain, suspicious, hopeful, and, yes, proud—she saw it, she saw his jaw lift, felt the flare in the man as some heat arose from deep inside him, some idea of the soul that translated into a conviction, despite his exposed condition before this great house, of his essential manhood. Martha saw it; Francis Drogo saw it also. He understood what had brought Harry here and what it had cost him. He shook him warmly by the hand and, still gripping his hand, pointed toward the house, offered hospitality, made him welcome; and the two men went in.

  Martha was in some distress now. She imagined she would be summoned to appear below, where his lordship, in a magnanimous gesture of misplaced condescension, would reunite the father with his daughter. Martha remembered what William had said, he had sworn on his h
onour that her presence would not be revealed. This calmed her down. This brought her round.

  She made herself comfortable in her window once more. Twilight was stealing over the marsh, and with it a low mist, a clinging, seeping mist, and soon, she knew, the howling would begin; and she thought, surely Lord Drogo will not send my father home in the dark? She tried to imagine what was happening down in the hall, or the kitchen, or wherever it was that Lord Drogo saw fit to entertain a man like Harry Peake. Were they again speaking of his pain? No, more likely Harry was telling his story, telling his lordship of his ill fortune in raising a treacherous child who stole his money and ran off with another man, leaving him destitute. Was she here, he might ask, and Lord Drogo, she imagined—she hoped!—would respond with bluff surprise and amusement: “Here, sir? Whatever makes you think she is here, sir?”

  What would her father say to that? “You showed us kindness, my lord, when we were last together. I suspect my daughter may presume on that kindness by coming to you now.”

  “I wish she had, sir. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to effect a meeting between you and your daughter, to some happy end. I remember the girl well. Spirited creature.”

  What could her father do—argue with him, contradict him? His position would be delicate now. Swimming in gin as he was, could he muster the wit to keep his mouth shut and avoid giving offence? Not altogether; not as she heard it told later by William. Harry had apparently come straight to the point.

  “Is she here, my lord?” he said.

  Lord Drogo, had he chosen to, could have regarded this as a gross affront. He chose not to. William said that Lord Drogo had at once understood the extent of Harry’s moral decline and knew him not to be responsible for all that he said. He was curious, in fact, as to how far gone in drink Harry was; Harry’s state of health had become a matter of some importance to him, and yes indeed, I thought, so it should be. He glanced at William.

  “We have not seen her, sir,” he said. “She did not come to me.”

  Now the poet’s head, his rheumy bloodhound eyes, swung round to William.

  “Not to you, my lord,” said Harry. “To him.”

  Drogo did not blink.

  “We cannot help you, sir, neither I nor William. She is not here. If you doubt my word, however”—and here he permitted a pause, so as to invite Harry to wave aside at once any suggestion that his lordship’s word might be doubted—“I offer you the freedom of my house.”

  The invitation was made in tones which indicated that to accept would be an impertinence; and Harry, now, hesitated to antagonize Lord Drogo, from whom he had already had assistance and could hope to have more. He turned from William to his lordship, anger, confusion, desperation all working across his harrowed features.

  “Forget her,” said Lord Drogo.

  “She has stolen my money, my lord.”

  “I shall give you money. Forget her.”

  Imagine Martha’s reaction when William told her all this! Harry was silent now. Had he the will for it, he could have searched the house from cellar to attic. Drogo’s authority alone prevented him. He turned again to William, and again subjected him to a scrutiny which troubled him sorely, for my uncle disliked deception—so he claimed, ha!—particularly with a man in as pitiful a state as her father was; for he felt, so he said, a genuine sympathy for the man.

  Darkness fell on Drogo Hall. Lights were lit, and in the kitchen there was much heat and noise and toil, as there was every night when Patience Cogswell prepared to feed the many and various individuals lodging in and around the great house. Martha waited in a state of no little apprehension.

  Downstairs, Harry was explosive, said William. Every impulse, every intuition of that intelligent but befuddled man told him his daughter was here. But every impulse of caution and self-preservation told him to acquiesce in the lie he was being told. Fearless when sober, drunk he was reckless, and he might have pressed the point. But he did not.

  Then Lord Drogo all at once clapped his hands and gave out a brisk bark of laughter. “Enough, Harry Peake,” he cried, “do not take on so, sir! Are you the first man had his daughter run away from him? Many would think it a blessing. Come and eat, and we will talk more. Come!”

  Lord Drogo was a charming man, when he chose to be so; he now affected the genial good heart of the rustic squire taking his guest to table, and he would brook no argument. Harry reluctantly relinquished his cause, albeit temporarily, and allowed himself to be led off to the dining room.

  He slept in the house that night. Martha knew this because she was watching for him, and he did not appear. And as the hours passed, it became clear that he would not appear, not that night. The howling started up out on the marsh, and Martha stirred with unease. Around ten the wind freshened and soon was blowing hard, and it muffled the howling but aroused instead a symphony of strange noises there in the high regions of the tower in the west wing. Amid the creakings and thumpings and rattlings, the bangings and gustings and crashings, would she hear the approaching footsteps—the laboured breathing outside the door—?

  This is what she feared, poor Martha, who had learned at her father’s knee to fear nothing. Now she would sit up and keep watch, so with book and candle she made herself comfortable in her window alcove as the wind came up ever stronger and howled among the turrets and chimneys of the old hall.

  The hours passed and her eyelids grew heavy; she could concentrate no longer on her book. As she sat there in the window she imagined herself the only soul in the house still alert. No longer infected with despair, and strangely soothed by the howling wind, and pleased to think that everyone in the house was asleep but her—she began to wish that her father would come. How she wanted to see him—! She still believed that she could drive out the madness that was in him. She would do it by the power of her love. He was not a free man. He did the will of another. From that other she would liberate him, she would restore him to himself, to the man he had been, the father she had known, the wise, gentle, melancholy poet in the warmth of whose love she had grown and flourished—

  She fell asleep in the window and dreamed wildly; and waking at dawn, shivering with the cold, and stiff in every joint, she stumbled into bed fully clothed. When next she awoke it was broad daylight. She opened her eyes and sat up in the bed; then leapt out and dashed to the window, and peered out over the marsh. Some mist still, but clarity enough to see there was no one on the road.

  A voice spoke from the open doorway.

  “He left at dawn,” said my uncle William.

  “At dawn—?” She turned toward him.

  “You are safe now.”

  Martha said nothing more. He had left at dawn—but she had awoken at dawn! She might have seen him, and if she had, she would, she knew, have gone out and run after him. And then what? Would she indeed have liberated him from his demon? In the cold morning light she still believed she could.

  It was from my uncle William that she learned of her father having dined with Lord Drogo that night; how the great man had had William on one side of him, and Harry Peake on the other, at the head of the table in the grand dining room where in recent days I myself had more than once supped. There was nobody else present, and Harry had been treated, as an honoured guest, with every courtesy. They had drunk claret with the roast beef, and mead with the pheasant, and Riesling with the fish, and cider with the apple pie, and port with the nuts and cheese; and Harry, given the chance of conversation with a man of learning, seized upon it, and rose to the occasion, although fresh draughts of wine did nothing to improve his nerves. Every so often, said my uncle, there would be a sudden bang!, and plates and glasses rattled, as one or other of Harry’s knees swung suddenly violently sideways into a leg of the table, an effect of old gin still sluicing about his body; or his fist would suddenly clench tight, quite involuntarily, or some odd spasm would seize upon his upper body and for a moment he was rocked back and forth with the force of it.

  Lord Drogo obser
ved all this, said William, with that intense curiosity he brought to bear on all pathological phenomena, and questioned Harry closely about the state of his health, in particular the effects of sustained gin drinking on the intellectual and poetic functions; after which they returned to matters of literature and history, and Harry Peake’s powerful mind had little trouble overcoming the influence of the wine he had drunk; and then the two men parted for the night, Lord Drogo excusing himself on the pretext that he had further work to do, but inviting Harry to make free of his library, and to sleep in the house.

  William accompanied his master down to the cellars, lighting their way with a branch of candles. Lord Drogo, despite his affability at table, then displayed considerable irritation toward my uncle.

  “You are fortunate,” he said in tones of ice as they descended into the cellars, “that our friend believed you.”

  Lord Drogo of course referred to William’s denial of Martha’s presence in the house.

  “Why should he not, my lord?”

  “Do not play me for a fool, sir!” cried Drogo in a surge of sudden rage. Then, calmer: “Do not play me for a fool. There is nothing in this house escapes me, do you not understand that? Keep her out of sight!”—and with that he stripped off his coat, and strapped on his apron, and went at his work with his usual ferocity.

  So Lord Drogo knew about her after all. He knew about her, and tolerated her under his roof. Because at heart he was a good man who recognized that he had an obligation toward her? Or because it was his interest that Harry Peake not revenge himself upon his daughter for some imaginary wrong she had done him? For if that were to happen, others would lay claim to Harry Peake and he would be lost to Lord Drogo forever. Thus did I construe the meaning of his lordship’s actions that night. He was prepared to protect Martha, this was clear enough, but not for her own sake, for her father’s. Or rather, for his own.